MLB.com's Greg Johns blogs about the Mariners. You can also follow him on Twitter @gregjohnsmlb.

Dominican teen infielder signs with Mariners

The Mariners have signed Angel Yente, a 17-year-old infielder from the Dominican Republic, as one of their latest international additions.

The club signs a lot of these types of players and occassionally things work out. That’s the way guys like Felix Hernandez, Michael Pineda, Jose Lopez, Carlos Peguero, Carlos Triuenfel, Alex Liddi, Ryan Rowland-Smith and others wound up in the Mariners system.

Seattle has been one of the leaders in the international market. That said, there are lots more such players who don’t rise to the Major League ranks, so these things should be kept in perspective.

I don’t know anything about Yente, other than what is reported on this Dominican Prospect League website. You can click on that link to see a video of Yente. The DPL reports that he agreed to a $225,000 signing bonus.

The international rules will be changing under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement and it will be interesting to see how that plays out, with all signs pointing to an eventual international draft as opposed to these sorts of free-agent signings.

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